If You Don't Want To Cry Your Eyes Out...

SnowWalker

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JAFO Pathfinder

JAFO

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This is exactly why, here in Australia, so many of us are fighting against the proposed massive Adani Corporation coal mining project that our so-called government seems hell-bent on establishing. Apart from what burning all that coal will do, the main shipping port will be right by some of the most pristine parts of the Great Barrier Reef. Besides the potential for damage to the reef during port construction, one shipping disaster could destroy large parts of the reef. Adani has a terrible track-record of environmental destruction and of ignoring legislation designed to protect the environment, and there's no reason to think it will be any different this time.

Concerted efforts have ensured that no bank in the world will finance it, but still our government refuses to admit defeat. The latest effort is a govt slush fund using taxpayer money to do what the banks won't. No matter where in the world you live, look into this, and please do everything you can to apply pressure on the Australian government to kill this project off, once and for all.

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SnowWalker Pathfinder

SnowWalker

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2 hours ago, JAFO said:

please do everything you can to apply pressure on the Australian government to kill this project off, once and for all.

You'd think the Australian government would want to preserve what's left of the continent. I look at Australia from Google Earth and desertification seems rampant. Global warming is affecting gigantic portions of the whole planet. It looks like Earth is going to eventually turn into Mars to me. Industry should have been reeled in a long time ago to keep a balance within the environment and the Earth's precious ecosystems. Unfortunately, money and greed speak louder than anything else.
Can you maybe share some links with us so that we can educate ourselves with he problems and see what we can do?

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JAFO Pathfinder

JAFO

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1 hour ago, SnowWalker said:

You'd think the Australian government would want to preserve what's left of the continent.

You would.. and especially the coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (one of our most treasured tourist attractions and a big part of our economy), which featured heavily in the Netflix documentary you mentioned. Unfortunately, our Federal Govt is run by a group of extreme-right politicians, who are beholden to and in cahoots with the Mining Lobby, probably the most powerful special interest group in the country. But even our most left-wing parties are very much behind coal, both as an energy source and an export resource.

 

1 hour ago, SnowWalker said:

I look at Australia from Google Earth and desertification seems rampant.

Actually, Australia has always been that way.. desertification isn't really a very big problem. Over-exploitation of major rivers and aquifers is, however. But Australia has always only been green around the edges.. it's a big part of why, despite having a land area roughly equal to that of continental North America, our total population is less than 25 million, and why we have one of the most highly urbanised populations in the world.

 

1 hour ago, SnowWalker said:

Industry should have been reeled in a long time ago to keep a balance within the environment and the Earth's precious ecosystems. Unfortunately, money and greed speak louder than anything else.

Agreed. It's always been a mystery to me how Big Business claims there's too much regulation, and that they can be trusted to do the right thing without constant supervision.. because history consistently shows that they can't be trusted at all, and every time you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. If anything, they need a lot more cracking down on, with penalties of 10x the profits made from illegal ventures or lawbreaking, instead of the token slaps on the wrist they get now. But that won't happen until they're no longer able to buy political influence.

 

1 hour ago, SnowWalker said:

Can you maybe share some links with us so that we can educate ourselves with he problems and see what we can do?

Sure..

Here's a link to the Australian Marine Conservation Society's website, which is a great resource for seeing what's going on with the Great Barrier Reef in general.

Here's a link to a page exposing the myths and lies being spread by Adani and the Australian government about the benefits of the project.

Here's a link where you can download a PDF called "The Adani Files", which is a detailed summary of the MANY crimes of this corporation, and the specific risks their operations present to huge areas of environmentally-sensitive parts of Australia. (the download link is at the very bottom-right of the page, titled "Print this report")

Please note that the report was published shortly before (and hence doesn't mention) the most recent case of environmental destruction by Adani in Australia, where sensitive coastal wetlands were flooded with toxic effluent. (See if you can find some before & after shots of the area.. it's shocking) Quoting from that link:

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When Cyclone Debbie hit the Queensland coast in March [2017], Adani were given a special permit which allowed them to increase the amount of polluted water they released adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef.

The government has now fined Adani for breaching conditions of this special licence, exceeding their already relaxed pollution discharge limit to the ocean by more than 800 per cent. That is 26 times more than the contaminant limit that Adani is normally allowed to discharge, under their existing environmental authority.

 

That should give you more than enough information to get going on, and lots of names and terms you can google to dig deeper.

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SnowWalker Pathfinder

SnowWalker

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Thanks @JAFO I'll check into these. I wondered about the desert and how long Australia's been that way because I watched a video recently that shows that the Sahara desert was once a lush and thriving rain forest. It's good to know though.
The saddest part about that video was the Great Barrier Reef. And people, including Trump, deny global warming. I wondered while watching the documentary...is there some way to cool the reef down a bit? But lord only knows how we could do that. Seems an impossibility to do that manually and if there was a way, someone would have come up with it already.
It's amazing to me how people can just deny what the oil industry and our billions of modes of transportation plus dirty energy has cost the planet. "Oh, warming is just a natural process". To me a natural cooling of the planet would make more sense.
I mean, TGBR started forming 8,000 yrs ago but it's only dying now? How can anyone deny who's fault that is? It's the same thing when 50yrs ago, big tobacco started paying for the campaigns that tried to show that smoking didn't cause lung disease, so that people would keep on smoking and giving them billions upon billions of $$$. Now we're seeing the same kind of videos trying to show that electric cars are bad because terrible child labor gives us electric cars, wht?
They'll do and say anything to keep bringing in more money with their companies., and people want to believe it so that they don't have to worry. Why can't they put their efforts into clean energy? Can't they make money with solar power and wind power? I don't get it?

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JAFO Pathfinder

JAFO

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6 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

How can anyone deny who's fault that is? It's the same thing when 50yrs ago, big tobacco started paying for the campaigns that tried to show that smoking didn't cause lung disease, so that people would keep on smoking and giving them billions upon billions of $$$.

Funny you should mention that... ;)

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air - How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science

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JAFO Pathfinder

JAFO

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1 minute ago, SnowWalker said:

Money talks, and bullshit walks. Only in this case, I guess it's the well being of our own whole planet that's considered the bullshit :(

Do a little reading into what Big Business calls "externalities".. which is a code-word meaning "the unfortunate consequences and side-effects of our activities are Someone Else's ProblemTM."

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SnowWalker

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18 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Do a little reading into what Big Business calls "externalities".. which is a code-word meaning "the unfortunate consequences and side-effects of our activities are Someone Else's ProblemTM."

I will, but I guess I can imagine who's problem it's going to be. The people of the future. Just like in the book 'Nature's End' where the people in the future all hate the past generations and curse us for handing down a broken planet to them.

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Thrasador Pathfinder

Thrasador

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I saw a potential invention someone was working on years ago that could help cool the reef. I don't know what it was called, but it was basically like a 200ft long plastic sheet tube with a metal valve on the end that was supposed to float in the ocean and use the motion of waves to pump deeper nutrient rich water (which is also a lot colder) to the surface of the ocean.

At the time the test prototypes all failed, due to the plastic tube tearing. Basically the material they used wasn't strong enough to pump all that water upwards with the valve on the bottom closed. Apparently the inventors weren't smart enough to do maths to calculate how much weight and force would be involved when trying to move thousands of gallons of water upwards, when the valve shuts on the bottom and a wave pulls the water upwards. Hopefully they redesigned it by now using kevlar lined tubing or something.

One did work briefly, and had a massive effect in the surrounding area where it was located. A lot of plankton and krill showed up in the ocean surrounding the tube and a bunch of sea life showed up in the area to eat it....including a giant whale shark.

The invention was going to be used to try to populate "desert" areas in the ocean where there is no life...because there is no food, or plankton which is the bottom of the ocean food pyramid....

But like I said, deeper ocean water is also much colder. You just need a cheap inefficient way to pump it up to the surface. This invention doesn't require power. It works by wave action. So after the initial cost of purchasing them, well and upkeep if they break, there aren't any power bills or anything to worry about....

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10 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Interesting.. many thanks!

No problem....you know me....the data sponge....

9 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

That really sounds like something worth working on and perfecting.

Yes, I love inventions....they just need a stronger tube material....I'm sure something could be developed. Like I suggested, using a kevlar coated tube....or some new rubberized plastic that isn't so rigid that it tears that easily....

Someone will figure it out. It was a prototype. I'm sure it can be improved upon...I would call their test a "proof of concept" at least....

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SnowWalker Pathfinder

SnowWalker

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2 minutes ago, Thrasador said:

No problem....you know me....the data sponge....

Yes, I love inventions....they just need a stronger tube material....I'm sure something could be developed. Like I suggested, using a kevlar coated tube....or some new rubberized plastic that isn't so rigid that it tears that easily....

Someone will figure it out. It was a prototype. I'm sure it can be improved upon...I would call their test a "proof of concept" at least....

I mean, Kickstarter could fund it I'm sure.

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Ruruwawa Pathfinder

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Fascinating topic, and by no means limited to Australia.   @Thrasador not knocking the scientific workarounds but ecosystems are delicately balanced things. How do we know the the pump would not introduce new factors that also damage the reef?  By the time we're talking about restorative measures, something worth saving has already been lost -- often permanently.  Much wise not to trash them in the first place.

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Just now, Ruruwawa said:

not knocking the scientific workarounds but ecosystems are delicately balanced things. How do we know the the pump would not introduce new factors that also damage the reef?

That had crossed my mind too.. coral reefs are relatively delicate things. If the water is too hot, or too cold, they don't do well. If such pumps were introduced, things would have to be carefully monitored, and regulated. There's also the matter of introducing all that plankton and krill into a region it had not been before. A huge surge in the available food supply can upset existing balances. The Law of Unintended Consequences is always active.

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35 minutes ago, JAFO said:

That had crossed my mind too.. coral reefs are relatively delicate things. If the water is too hot, or too cold, they don't do well. If such pumps were introduced, things would have to be carefully monitored, and regulated. There's also the matter of introducing all that plankton and krill into a region it had not been before. A huge surge in the available food supply can upset existing balances. The Law of Unintended Consequences is always active.

I can think of several other factors beyond water temp:  wrong pH, particles/"silt" settling on the coral, toxins and other chemicals from deeper strata of water, nutrients not typically found on the reef attracting invasive species.  I'm no scientist, so I could easily be wrong about any or all of those.  I think the lesson here is to hold on to what's not yet damaged with both hands.  

I've taken a couple of dive trips to the reef, about 20 years ago now.  Wow, what a spectacular place.  I've visited other places in Australia and there's a lot of wonderfully unique nature and culture -- but the reef is unique on a global scale.  I'd hate to see it lost for something as no-value-add (=low quantity and quality of jobs) and problematic as coal.  Coal, of all things!  Solar seems like the smart fit for Australia, both from a natural resources and economic development point of view.  

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5 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

Solar seems like the smart fit for Australia, both from a natural resources and economic development point of view.  

That's what most Aussies think, too.. but the parasites that run things here.. not so much. They like their gravy train the way it is.

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